December 2012 – Risk Management 365

Safety Tips: New Year’s Eve

If you are hosting a New Year’s Eve party, following a few simple rules could prevent a tragedy:

Plan ahead by naming a “designated driver.” Make this your responsibility as the host.
Contact a local cab company to provide rides for your guests.
Serve non-alcoholic beverages as an option to your guests.
Stop serving alcohol to your guests several hours before the party ends.
Provide your guests with a place to stay overnight in your home.
If you are attending New Year’s Eve parties and celebrations:
If you drink, don’t drive.
Plan ahead and always designate a sober driver before the party or celebration begins.
If you are impaired, call a taxi, use mass transit, or get a sober friend or family member to come pick you up.
Or, stay where you are until you are sober.
Take the keys from someone if you think he/she is too impaired to drive.

via USA.gov: Safety Tips: New Year’s Eve.

How can workplace violence hazards be reduced?

In most workplaces where risk factors can be identified, the risk of assault can be prevented or minimized if employers take appropriate precautions. One of the best protections employers can offer their workers is to establish a zero-tolerance policy toward workplace violence. This policy should cover all workers, patients, clients, visitors, contractors, and anyone else who may come in contact with company personnel.

By assessing their worksites, employers can identify methods for reducing the likelihood of incidents occurring. OSHA believes that a well written and implemented Workplace Violence Prevention Program, combined with engineering controls, administrative controls and training can reduce the incidence of workplace violence in both the private sector and Federal workplaces.

This can be a separate workplace violence prevention program or can be incorporated into an injury and illness prevention program, employee handbook, or manual of standard operating procedures. It is critical to ensure that all workers know the policy and understand that all claims of workplace violence will be investigated and remedied promptly. In addition, OSHA encourages employers to develop additional methods as necessary to protect employees in high risk industries.

via Safety and Health Topics | Workplace Violence.

The Risk of Surgical Error

After a cautious and rigorous analysis of national malpractice claims, Johns Hopkins patient safety researchers estimate that a surgeon in the United States leaves a foreign object such as a sponge or a towel inside a patient’s body after an operation 39 times a week, performs the wrong procedure on a patient 20 times a week and operates on the wrong body site 20 times a week.

The researchers, reporting online in the journal Surgery, say they estimate that 80,000 of these so-called “never events” occurred in American hospitals between 1990 and 2010 – and believe their estimates are likely on the low side.

via Johns Hopkins Malpractice Study: Surgical ‘Never Events’ Occur At Least 4,000 Times per Year – 12/19/2012.

Worksite Wellness – Sustainability

Quality Work and Quality Living

A positive wellness culture in the workplace contributes to the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of workers. The workplace becomes more productive and constructive when employers integrate breaks for rejuvenation. It also helps to establish clear and reasonable roles and responsibilities and respect the time and talents of individuals and their non-work demands. These steps provide the organization with more opportunity to reduce the number of sick days and health-associated costs. Are you working to make your office a healthy place for yourself and your colleagues?

Worksite Wellness at a Glance

Helps employees take responsibility for lifestyle choices
Educates workforce about hazards and opportunities for wellness
Enhances employee productivity
Reduces absences and idleness
Reduces health care costs
Shifts health care paradigm from treatment to prevention

For Employers

Establish programs for exercise during the workday
Implement a no-smoking policy and provide resources for tobacco cessation
Allow flexible work schedules and telecommuting
Encourage personnel to take the stairs
Select worksites close to public transportation, walking trails, fitness facilities, and other amenities

via CDC – Worksite Wellness – Sustainability.

Clean Hands Save Lives

The most important thing that you and your kids can do to help keep from getting sick is to wash hands, especially after coughing and sneezing, before preparing foods or eating, and after using the restroom. By washing your hands often, you wash away germs that you have picked up from other people, from contaminated surfaces, or from animals and animal waste. Everyone should wash their hands for 20 seconds (about the length of a little tune) to remove germs. It is the soap combined with the scrubbing action that helps dislodge and remove germs. Rinse well and dry your hands. It is estimated that one out of three people do not wash their hands after using the restroom.

via CDC – Family Health – Parents: ABCs of Raising Safe and Healthy Kids.

Understanding the Roles of Behavior in Safety

Behaviors have always had a role in safety dating back to prehistoric times, and they always will. Behaviors were the primary, and sometimes only, tools for survival, remaining today as the last tool when all else fails. When in an environment you do not control or when you lack the right tools or systems fail, it is up to you to behave in a manner for self-preservation. This is popularized with the common statement, “You are the one responsible for your safety.” This is not ideal; it is, however, reality.

via Understanding the Roles of Behavior in Safety — Occupational Health & Safety.

Preventing Choking Among Infants and Young Children

Many infants and children die each year from choking. These deaths can be prevented if parents and care givers watch their children more closely and keep dangerous toys, foods, and household items out of their reach.

Safety Tips: Tips for Preventing Choking

If you are the parent or care giver of an infant or child under 4 years old, follow these tips from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Red Cross, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to reduce the chances of choking.

At Mealtime

Insist that your children eat at the table, or at least sitting down. Watch young children while they eat. Encourage them to eat slowly and chew their food well.
Cut up foods that are firm and round and can get stuck in your child’s airway, such as
hotdogs -always cut hotdogs length-wise and then into small pieces
grapes-cut them into quarters
raw vegetables-cut them into small strips or pieces that are not round

Other foods that can pose a choking hazard include:

hard or sticky candy, like whole peppermints or caramels
nuts and seeds (don’t give peanuts to children under age 7)
popcorn
spoonfuls of peanut butter

via Preventing Choking Among Infants and Young Children.

Talent and Skills Shortage Top Risk for 2012

Despite record unemployment levels across much of the US, American business leaders say one of the biggest risks they now face is a talent and skills shortage. That’s according to the 2011 Lloyd’s Risk Index, carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit, which polled 500 C-Suite and board level executives in North America, Europe, Asia and elsewhere to assess corporate risk priorities and attitudes around the world.

via Talent and Skills Shortage Top Risk for 2012 According to Business Leaders: HR Human Resources.

Prevent Child Injuries – Protect the Ones You Love

More than 9 million children between birth and age 19 are seen for injuries each year in U.S. emergency departments, and injuries are the leading cause of death among children in this age group.

The top causes of child injury and the steps you can take to prevent them.

Burns

Install and maintain smoke alarms in your home.
Develop and practice a family fire escape plan.
Set your water heater’s thermostat to 120 degrees Fahrenheit or lower.
Use safe cooking practices, such as never leaving food unattended on the stove.

Drownings

Install a four-sided isolation fence, with self-closing and self-latching gates, around backyard swimming pools.
Learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and get recertified every two years.
Supervise young children at all times around bathtubs, swimming pools, and natural bodies of water.

Falls

Use playground equipment that is properly designed and maintained, and that has a soft landing surface material below.
Use home safety devices, such as guards on windows that are located above ground-level, stair gates, and guard rails.
Supervise young children at all times around fall hazards, like stairs and playground equipment.

Poisonings

Store medicines and other toxic products such as cleaning solutions in locked or childproof cabinets.
Put the poison control number, 1-800-222-1222, on or near every home telephone.
Dispose of unused, unneeded, or expired prescription drugs.

via CDC Features – Prevent Child Injuries during Home Safety Month.

What is Blake Mouton’s Managerial Grid?

There is risk in not knowing how to manage people. The Blake & Mouton’s Managerial Grid is a great tool to evaluate leadership style for change and improvement.

The managerial grid model (1964), developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton, is a behavioral leadership model. The model is an excellent way to map out different leadership styles, and an excellent way to evaluate the leadership performed by leaders and managers.

This model identifies five different leadership styles based on the concern for people and the concern for production. It is important to remember that none of the concerns are right or wrong, and the concerns are ideally balanced to the respective situational context of leadership.

Concern for People relates to the degree to which a leader considers needs of employees and team members before deciding how to accomplish a task. A high degree of concern could be coupled to a more democratic leadership style, whereas a low concern for people could be coupled to an autocratic leadership style.

Concern for Production relates to the degree to which a leader emphasizes production effectiveness and efficiency when deciding how best to accomplish tasks.

By charting the position in the grid it is possible to diagnose which leadership style is being performed, and to evaluate the appropriateness of the style of leadership.

via What is Blake & Mouton’s Managerial Grid?.